Misprogrammed
by WhatsInAName99
Summary: The MT shoved the little blonde boy up the ramp and into the airship. Three more IDs were called before the MTs raised the ramp and the airship doors closed like the jaws of a giant lion swallowing up twenty-nine children into total darkness. This is a Prompto origin story, please read the authors note within. Don't be surprised if the rating goes up.
1. D-88135K

So I have yet to find anything concrete on how Prompto got from Niflheim to Lucis or on how MTs are raised and trained from childhood on. This is 99.999% artistic liberty. There may come a time when all things Prompto are explained, and when that day comes I know that my fic and cannon will in no way resemble each other. For now though, this is the best I can do with what I scrounged up from the vague bullshit ramblings of that purple-haired dickweasel Ardyn.

* * *

He asked a lot of questions. _What does the ocean smell like? Why can't I wear red today instead of boring gray all the time. What's it like to ride a chocobo?_

He was creative, curious, idealistic, and thoughtful.

Not desirable qualities in a Magitek youngling.

He was afraid.

It was time for the semi annual culling, a time where younglings were tested and evaluated to ensure they were being programmed properly to grow up to be the strong forces of Niflheim; daemon/human hybrids who questioned nothing and believed their soul purpose in life to be killing in the name of the empire. Those who passed evaluation went on for further programming. Those who failed were labeled as misprogrammed. None of the younglings (at least in the younger-aged brackets) knew for sure what happened to them, only that they were flown away never to bee seen again. The creative youngling with light blond hair who was smaller than most others in his bracket of four-to-six-year-olds, tried to deny it, but he knew deep down that he had already failed.

... ... ... ... ... ... _three days earlier_... ... ... ... ... ...

The boy sat in a black metal chair in the center of a dimly lit square room with metal paneled walls. An evaluator, a tall bald heavily muscled man dressed in a gray suit, holding a remote control, stood a few feet in front of the boy. Behind him was a large television screen. "I will show you an image on the screen. You will tell me if the image depicts ally, enemy, or neutral."

The boy nodded nervously. The evaluator stepped aside and the test began.

The first image depicted a typical Magitek soldier.

"Ally."

The evaluator kept his eyes trained on the boy as the image of an enormous daemon with black skin and glowing red eyes appeared on the screen.

The boys sky blue eyes widened in fear. "E...enemy?" he stuttered.

The evaluaor's brow furrowed.

 _I think I got that wrong_ , the boy thought. _Don't they use those things to make us?_

Next was a newspaper article headed with a photograph of King Regis Lucis Caelum of the neighboring kingdom of Lucis.

The boy hesitated. The Lucian king looked so stunningly regal with his neatly trimmed beard on his kind face and wearing elegant obsidian robes adorned with silver and gold. By his side, only half visible in the frame, was a boy about his own age wearing a school uniform.

 _He can't be an enemy, can he? He looks so nice! But...he's not Imperial..._

"Neau...tral?"

"D-88135K, you are dismissed."

The boy stood slowly from his seat and exited the room to rejoin bracket B7 in the waiting room. He stood in his place in line with his head hung low and his shoulders slumped forward, a stark contrast to the other younglings' proper posture. Some of them fidgeted a bit, but that was to be expected of the younger-aged brackets. Still, they maintained their strictly militant order. Out of the corner of his right eye, he could see the youngling next to him, a taller boy with auburn hair and green eyes, glaring down at him. The blond boy looked up.

The auburn haired boy mouthed the one word every youngling of every bracket dreaded ever hearing.

"Misprogrammed."

The blond returned his fellow younglings glare. He would never dare say it aloud, but all he could think was...

 _Enemy._

... ... ... ... ... ...

A level B bracket contained younglings ages 4-6. There were ten of these brackets, each containing thirty to forty younglings. So it was upwards of three hundred children lined up inside the hanger bay like the platoons of soldiers they would become. Each one hoped their ID would not be called. If their ID was called, they had been labeled misprogrammed. If they were labeled misprogrammed, they would be dead within a day.

The blue-eyed blond creative boy trembled where he stood. Twenty five IDs had already been called; twenty five younglings had been loaded into a waiting airship.

Then it happened.

"D-88135K."

The boy began to cry and he staggered out of line. An MT came up behind him and roughly grabbed his shoulders, pushing him forward.

 _This is it,_ the boy thought. _I'll die. I'll never smell the ocean. I'll never wear red. I'll never ride a chocobo._

The MT shoved the boy up the ramp and into the airship to join the others. He continued to cry as he joined the huddle of terrified boys against the back wall. Three more IDs were called before the MTs raised the ramp and the airship doors closed like the jaws of a giant lion swallowing twenty nine children into total darkness.


	2. Wearing Red

To my guest reviewer: Oh, the heart tearing has only just begun, my friend.

* * *

"Let us out! Please!" cried one boy.

"I don't want to die!" cried another.

But the blue-eyed blond creative boy was in to much of a shock to cry out. He only sat with his head tucked between his knees and his arms wrapped as tightly as possible around himself, trying to ignore the roar of the engine and the way the floor shook as the ship took off, flying them away to whatever fate awaited.

"What are they going to do to us?" one boy whimpered?

"Do you think they'll feed us to daemons?" came another boys quivering voice.

The blond boy covered his ears so not to hear his fellow younglings speculate on how they might be killed. As a distraction he tried to imagine himself in red swim-trunks, riding a chocobo along a beach, breathing in a gentle ocean breeze.

He tried to imagine.

But he couldn't.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

He was just on the verge of crying himself to sleep when he was startled by a shrieking whistle from outside the ship, immediately followed by a deafening boom that shook she ship violently. The boy screamed and many slammed into each other and the walls. The little blond screamed and flailed as he flew across the hold. His forehead collided with a wall, sending a wave of red-hot pain through his small helpless body. He had never known such pain existed. The electroshock treatments in his regular programming sessions hurt quite a lot, and the beatings he would receive as punishment for questioning the instructors resulted in a similar kind of pain, but never had he experienced something so intense. He pressed the palm of his hand against the wound that was already free-flowing blood down his face, stinging his eyes and dripping into his mouth.

Even as young as he was, the irony was not lost on him.

 _I wanted to wear red. I guess...now...I am..._

That was the last though he had before he lost consciousness.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

"How many were there again?"

"Twenty nine total."

"Did we lose any?"

"Five were DOI; at least two won't make it to Sorian."

The blond boy heard two men speaking to each other over the sounds of crying, whimpering, ans other painful sounds of the other children.

 _Who are those men? They aren't Magitek._

His eyes cracked open slightly and he blinked against the harsh afternoon light. As his vision began to focus, he saw the crashed burning remains of the airship. Next to it were the bodies of the two MT pilots and five boys.

DOI

 _Dead on impact._

The boy concluded with a pang of sorrow that five of his fellow younglings had been killed by whatever had crashed the airship, and two more were mortally wounded.

 _Am I one of those two?_

"Hey this one's awake," one of the men called. A short stocky man knelt in front of the blond. "Can ya hear me, Kid?"

The boy nodded slowly.

"What's yer ID?"

The boy opened his his mouth to answer, but all he could muster was a dry rasp. He cleared his burning throat. "D-88_" his voice cracked, "13..."

"He's a Type D, built for technical expertise and ranged combat," the other man interrupted, "That's all we need right now."

"Combat, hu?" The stocky man looked the boy over thoroughly. "This pathetic lump? Nah." The man stood and brushed the dirt from his black cargo pants. "I think this one's gonna live. Let's get'em loaded up."

The children that could walk staggered their way to a cargo truck. Others, like the little blond, had to be carried. All but two made it to the truck. Two boys who could not move and could barely breath were left lying on the ground. The blond, infused with hope for survival, found his courage to speak.

"What about them," he asked, pointing to the two boys left behind.

"They won't make it where we're headed," the stocky man who carried him answered simply.

"But you can't just leave them there to die!"

The man dropped the boy into the back of the truck and grabbed him by the hair. The boy yelped. "Listen up, kid. We might'a 'rescued' ya from being taken the daemon pits, but that doesn't mean we're yer friends. Try an tell me what I can an can't do one more time, you'll get left too. "

He slammed the door; the boy flinched. He sat up and peaked out the back window. One of the boys was now trying to sit up.

"NO!" the blond screamed.

"Sweet Six!" the stocky man cursed and opened the door again. He was now holding a pistol in one hand. "I'll put'em out'a their misery if it'll make ya shut up!" He slammed the door again.

The blond and four others crowded around the back windows to watch the stocky man walk briskly toward the two boys on the ground. Shouts of , "No!" "Don't do it!" and "Please stop!" filled the truck as the man leveled his gun at the boy who had tried to get up. With a loud BANG the boy was dead, and with another the one beside him followed. Defeated, the boys slumped down against the walls and collectively began to cry. Once again, they were loaded up and carried of to an unknown but likely terrible fate, only this time seven fewer than they had that morning.

The little blond had no more capacity left for dreams or hopes. There was no ocean, no chocobos. Red only existed as the color of fire and blood. He closed his sky-blue eyes and excepted not death, but a life of pain.


	3. Welcome to Sorian

It was dark by the time the boys were startled awake by the truck's doors being slammed open. The stocky man greeted them with a cruel smirk.

"Up an at'm, boys. Welcome to Sorian."

The boy had heard of Sorian. It was a hole-in the wall town where all manner of nefarious activities took place. Why they had been brought here, he did not want to think about.

Most of the children, including the little blond, managed to feebly climb out of the truck; the ones who were least injured (none of them were uninjured) helped the ones who could not do it alone. The truck was backed up towards a rundown looking warehouse. Two men dressed similarly to the stocky man and his partner guarded a set of double doors and ushered the children inside. The inside of the building looked like a makeshift hospital/cafeteria. There were rows of cots and cabinets filled with medical supplies on one side and several camp stoves with steaming pots of something that smelled delicious on the other side. In addition to the armed men stationed at the doors and corners, there were several girls, mostly young teenagers, in simple white dresses stirring pots, organizing cabinets, and laying blankets on the cots.

"Listen up boys," one of the men announced, "Pick a cot. The girls will get your wounds taken care of. After that, you'll eat and go to sleep. You've got a long day tomorrow."

The little blond chose the cot closest to the doors and sat down on the edge. A red haired girl stood in front of him. She smiled sweetly, but the boy did not look up.

"Looks like you had a nasty fall."

The boy nodded but did not reply.

"That's okay." The girl sat next to the boy on the bed. It was only then that he noticed she was holding a bundle of towels and a large bowl of steaming water. "The sooner we get you cleaned up, the sooner you can have a nice meal and get some rest."

It occurred to the boy then that he was starving. None of them had eaten sense early that morning.

"Now just take off that filthy shirt and we'll get started."

The boy grabbed the bottom of his bloody, muddy gray tshirt and tried to pull it off, but winced in pain once he raised his arms too high.

"Here, let me help you," the girl offered and pulled the article of clothing the rest of the way off.

The boy was grateful for the help, but he was confused. No one had ever been kind to him before, and he wondered if it was normal.

It was a blurry mixture of pain and soothing warmth as the girl first cleaned the blood from his face, then wet his hair with a towel and combed and dried away even more blood before finally sponging his bruised upper body clean. By then the gash on his forehead had re-opened, dripping fresh blood over his newly clean face.

"We'll need to bandage that," she said, and went to the nearest cabinet to retrieve a roll of bandages. She pressed a gauze pad to the wound and wrapped a strip of cloth around his head, fastening it with a pin. She wiped the last trickle from his face, then stood back to admire her work.

"There. All patched up. There's a change of cloths at the head of the bed. Go ahead and get dressed while I get you some food."

The boy looked the girl in the eyes for the first time and offered her the faintest of smiles. She smiled back and left in the direction of the stoves across the room. The boy quickly grabbed the cloths and, with some strained effort, managed to get the slightly oversized white tshirt over his head and onto his body. He kicked off his shoes, pulled down his dirty gray sweatpants and pulled on the new clean black ones offered to him just in time for the girl to return with a bowl of what looked like vegetable stew. He took the food and deeply inhaled through his nose, taking in the hearty aroma. His stomach growled audible and his cheeks reddened in embarrassment.

The girl giggled. "Better eat up. Just leave the bowl on the floor by the cot when you're finished."

She walked away and the boy began to eat. It was watery and bland, but he was so hungry he didn't mind. He devoured in in a hurry, not caring about the way it burned his mouth and throat. He did as he was told with the bowl when he was finished and curled up on the cot, pulling the scratchy flannel blanket over himself. He was full, he was warm, and he was momentarily safe. Still, he did not dare hope for much as exhaustion overtook him. His eyes fluttered closed and he quickly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

Looks like things are starting to look up for our little chocobo head...or are they?


End file.
